The New York Mets opened a three-game series against the San Francisco Giants at Citi Field on Wednesday night, and the game quickly turned into another look at how much of this roster now belongs to the future. Nick Morabito picked up his first two big league hits, drove in three runs on a double and added a catch in left field, giving the Mets one of the few clean bright spots in a season that has not stayed clean for long.
That mattered because the matchup arrived with both clubs buried well below.500. The Mets came in at 63-77 after a 2-1 roadtrip to Tampa Bay, while the Giants arrived at 58-83, a record that leaves little room for spin. For New York, the series is also a test of how far a reshaped group can go after the club won its first series in the last three series, then got walked off twice in Chicago and lost to both the Brewers and Astros.
Morabito’s night gave the series an immediate human frame. A first hit can be a milestone; two in one game, with three runs driven home on one double, starts to look like a player finding his footing. In a clubhouse that had sold off most of its bullpen and two outfielders before this stretch, every small lift has grown louder, especially when it comes from a player who is still trying to establish himself.
The Mets have not looked helpless, even if the record still reads like a disappointment. Daniel Duarte, Nate Lavender, Austin Warren and Dedniel Nuñez have been stepping up in the bullpen, Sean Manaea has wilted as of late, and Robert Stock has been pitching like a 36-year-old journeyman. That is the uneasy shape of the season: enough young arms have emerged to suggest something useful may be forming, but 63 wins does not disguise where the year has landed.
That is why the next few starts matter so much. Nolan McLean, Christian Scott and Zac Thornton were expected to take the ball against the Giants, with Jonah Tong also pitching much better in his last few outings. McLean, in particular, has become the clearest example of the Mets trying to build around what they have learned rather than what they lost. Since a shaky start on August 6th, he has thrown 25 innings in four starts and allowed three earned runs, a stretch that explains why he has kept getting the ball.
His season line shows why the club keeps leaning on him: 155.2 innings, 172 strikeouts, 61 walks, 15 home runs allowed, a 3.06 ERA and a 3.60 FIP, with a 75 ERA- to match. Wilkinson has also flashed value in a smaller sample, and Zac Thornton’s 61.1 innings with a 2.93 ERA point in the same direction. The numbers do not erase the frustration of the year, but they do explain why this series is being watched as more than a meeting between two clubs near the bottom of the NL.
The Giants would have been in the basement of the NL West if not for the Rockies, and that is part of the edge here. Luis Arraez is no longer on the Giants, Rafael Devers was reportedly miserable, and the club’s season has drifted close to disaster. The immediate question is not whether this weekend changes that. It is whether the Mets can keep turning a disappointing year into something that leaves them with more certainty than they had when it began.
For now, Morabito’s night and McLean’s rise give the Mets a reason to keep watching. The standings have already made their judgment, but the series against the Giants is still offering something the final record cannot: a first look at which names might matter when next season arrives.
